Mike Williams
BetaNews.com
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Past articles by Mike:
QuickViewer is a very, very, very fast image viewer
QuickViewer is a portable open-source image viewer which shows and navigates pictures with the maximum possible speed. The developer has built in multiple optimizations, including reading images before they’re required and displaying them with OpenGL. → Read More
Spot malware and troubleshoot PCs with QuickDiag
QuickDiag is a portable tool which creates an in-depth and highly technical report on your Windows setup, running processes and installed applications. → Read More
Deep-clean your hard drive with atomiccleaner3
Atomiccleaner3 is a powerful and comprehensive tool for cleaning junk files, browser histories and assorted other leftovers from your hard drive. → Read More
Find and control Windows 10 privacy settings with WPD
WPD is a freeware tool for exploring, understanding and tweaking Windows 10 privacy settings. We’ve seen many of these -- we’ll bet you have, too -- but the program does have some unusual extras which help it stand out from the crowd. → Read More
Securely encrypt single files with AES Protect
AES Protect is a portable tool for encrypting single files using a passphrase and AES. The program is written in x86 assembly language, which means there are no annoying dependencies, and the download is tiny: it’s a 32KB ZIP, but still manages to squeeze in three programs. → Read More
Extract icons and create image thumbnails with Thumbico
Thumbico is a combination of an icon extraction and viewing tool, with a thumbnail viewer and creator. The program is tiny, a 28KB download, and unsurprisingly there’s no installation required -- just unzip and run Thumbico.exe. → Read More
Colour Contrast Analyser is a versatile accessibility checker
Colour Contrast Analyser is an unusual accessibility tool with a couple of useful but very different functions. → Read More
Display live system stats on your taskbar with XMeters
XMeters is a free-for-personal-use system monitor which displays live CPU, RAM, network and drive stats directly on your taskbar. The details include CPU utilization by core, hard drive read and write rates, network upload and download speeds, and free and used RAM. → Read More
Protect your privacy with Disable Nvidia Telemetry
Microsoft and Windows may get most of the flak for collecting data on its users, but other companies also have issues. Nvidia’s GeForce Experience made headlines last year, thanks to some extensive data collection abilities of its own. → Read More
MyPC is a portable system information app
MyPC is a compact and portable system information tool for Windows. The program organizes its features across multiple tabs: → Read More
OutWiker is a versatile personal wiki
OutWiker is a free personal wiki for organizing text notes into a tree structure. The program uses wiki-type notation and its own commands to set up lists, tables, headings and assorted formatting options, insert images and more. → Read More
Cut PNG and JPG file sizes with Black Bird Image Optimizer
Black Bird Image Optimizer ($39.95) is a commercial tool which claims to → Read More
gInk is a quick and easy screen annotation app
GInk is an open-source Windows application which allows drawing and annotating your screen, then saving the results. The program is a handy way to highlight elements of a screenshot for presentations or demonstrations, or maybe to attach a quick note to a particular area of the screen. → Read More
Xonotic is a free and fast arena shooter
Xonotic is a fast-paced arena-style first-person shooter for Windows, Linux and Mac. Powered by a modified version of the Quake engine, the program’s quality graphics and lengthy feature list already outperform some commercial products. → Read More
Chrome Delight brings gorgeous time-lapse video to your New Tab page
There’s now a whole library of Chrome extensions which aim to enhance your → Read More
Safely clean your Windows Installer folder with PatchCleaner
PatchCleaner is a free tool which can detect and safely remove junk files from the \Windows\Installer folder, potentially freeing up gigabytes of hard drive space. → Read More
kkrieger: a first-person shooter in under 100KB
Tired of resource-hungry Electron apps hogging vast amounts of system resources for even the simplest task? For a neat reminder that it doesn’t have to be that way, take a look at kkrieger -- a complete first-person shooter in under 100KB. → Read More
Convert digital images to color ASCII art with Image2ASCII
Image2ASCII is an open-source Windows application which converts digital pictures to stylized ASCII art. The program is tiny, and arrives as a stand-alone executable. There’s no installation required, simply download and run it. → Read More
Find suspect processes, files and settings with ESET SysInspector
ESET SysInspector (32-bit) is a powerful tool for examining the low-level details of a PC, and perhaps spotting malicious files, poorly configured settings and other issues that might be causing you problems. → Read More
Automatically change Android device settings with AUTOSET
AUTOSET is an interesting $2 app which enables altering your Android device settings when you run an app, when an event happens, on a particular schedule, and more. This opens up all kinds of possibilities. Choose a navigation app in AUTOSET’s list, for instance, and you could increase the screen brightness and media volume. → Read More